A Barcelona court handed down the sentence after it found Messi and his father Jorge guilty of cheating Spain out of €4.1m ($4.5m) between 2007 and 2009. Messi was also fined €2-million, his father €1.5-million. The pair will likely face further fines in the millions for using tax havens in Uruguay and Belize to shield profits earned off image rights, according to the BBC. The pair have already made a voluntary €5-million “corrective” payment in 2013 covering unpaid taxes and interest.

While the decision can be appealed, neither the footballing superstar nor his father will face any jail time. Under Spanish law, sentences under two years can be served under probation.

So Lionel Messi gets a 21 month jail sentence for tax evasion, but won't do any time? Only color that matters in the world is green, y'all.

Messi has insisted throughout the trial that he did not know anything about his tax situation and that he was simply concentrating on “playing football.” At his trial he said he “signed what [Jorge Messi] told me to sign because I trusted my father.” The leaked Panama Papers show that the pair bought an offshore shell company the day after charges were brought against them.

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Ask The Big Question

How will this ruling affect Messi’s popularity around the world? And his earnings?

Disrupt Your Feed

Messi made over $81-million last year. He’ll be fine.

Drop This Fact

In the hours following his announcement that he was retiring from international play—dubbed “Mexit”—tens of thousands of fans took to Twitter begging him to reconsider. The hashtag #NoTeVayasMessi (Don’t Go Messi), #NoTeVayasLeo and others were seen tens of thousands of times.